Posted by: Isabel Hardman
28/07/2010The government made an announcement today on zero carbon: but it wasn’t the one we expected.
Every week for the past two months, I’ve called the Communities and Local Government department to find out when the definition of zero carbon might be published. I was acting on a promise: at the end of May, housing minister Grant Shapps announced he would ‘nail’ the definition of zero carbon ‘within weeks’.
He told Inside Housing that he wanted to press ahead with publishing the standards which all new homes must meet from 2016, and that the industry had waited for too long. We were promised that we would get it before the parliamentary recess, which starts today.
But each week when I spoke to the press office, I was told that there was ‘no date’ for the definition yet, and even yesterday, officials said they couldn’t tell me when the publication might be.
Mr Shapps himself told me only a few weeks ago that he thought the industry wanted more time on pinning the definition down, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when today’s announcement about moving closer to zero carbon failed to actually define what zero carbon is.
Whispers in the corridors of Whitehall that have reached Inside Housing suggest that the definition’s publication will be closer to November, which builders are warning will put the sector on a short deadline to prepare for the advent of zero carbon in 2016.
Although it might seem that today’s announcement was made purely so the government could say that it has at least done something before parliament breaks for the summer, it did include a number of interesting measures. Here’s a rundown of the good and the bad:
Good
- A community energy fund, which developers can pay into to support local energy projects. This means they don’t have to install expensive (and potentially not very useful) renewables on-site, or construct their own off-site renewable energy generators.
- The Zero Carbon Hub is to be part-funded for its work this year to the tune of £600,000.
- We have a confirmation that future revisions to the building regulations will include minimum standards for fabric energy efficiency.
Bad
- Mr Shapps has instructed the Zero Carbon Hub to reconsider the carbon compliance target, which demands that developers mitigate 70 per cent of carbon emissions from their sites using renewable energy. There’s a strong hint that the government thinks the current target is too costly, and will try to scale it down.
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Readers' comments (2)
Melvin Bone | 28/07/2010 11:07 am
With the financial meltdown brought on by the previous administration I think the Green agenda is pretty low down the list of priorities for the government...
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Chris | 28/07/2010 10:47 pm
Do you think Gordon Brown will ever be made to say sorry for his apparant worldwide destruction of the economies of Greece, Romania, USA, Spain, Poland, Brazil, Japan, Canada, France, Germany ...etc, or was he only responsible for the performance of the British economy, which is strangely performing just as Darling predicted and was rediculed for being over-optimistic about the recovery that his policies had established.
Labour under Blair were disgraceful, and under Brown directionless, but the scale of economic disaster is more in-line with those of the 80's and 90's than with the 30's. The emotive description of the crisis as a reason for even further centralisation of wealth therefore is probably the most cynical act I've ever witnessed.
But, the inexperienced will continue to lap up the spin until the day comes and they develop the ability for self determination and free thought and realise just how big a con has been acted out upon us all.
On the green agenda - the technology exists yet it is not being made available until the questions such as how to make a profit out of the wind can be answered. Now there's even more cynicism, but that's free market economics for you - the buck comes first, foremost, and last.
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